I woke up this morning with a heart full of angst. It feels like a storm blew through and dumped it in my lap like a black, muddy, puddle of glop.
What is the angst about?
Well it goes like this. A friend asked me to visit a dear friend of hers who’s been very ill. This man looks 20 years younger then he is, even being seriously ill. A very unique individual who has traveled the world for years and now he is bedridden and the ills are not healing. The question is why?
I’m a shamanic practitioner and usually I combine my intentional creativity teaching with my shamanic work. In this case, it was a bit more shamanic then creative and yet, it was both.
Here was a person angry at his loss of freedom, oozing crap out of his body and holding grief as a barrier to love, deep in his body. I listened and watched his body tell me what was going on. I offered him threads of joy to hold on to and felt when he grabbed on to the other end. It is deep work only just begun.
I walked away from this visit musing on how we humans in this culture of ours suffer so much from lack of love, from not knowing how to heal ourselves. Not having the tools necessary to unravel, re-weave, and grab back onto the threads of joy in our life. It is always incredibly painful for me to muse on this suffering we experience, and yet I must.
All day I could feel the questioning and the rolling over of stones. The asking of myself: Can I not do more? This opened the door to critic who, of course, decided it was a good time to point out my less than consistent methods of promoting the work I do in the world, and a myriad of other things. Painting instead of writing a newsletter? Who ever heard of such a thing!
That was when the black storm of angst began to blow in and I could feel my body round her shoulders and lean into the wind. Slipping in the mud and muck. Getting chilled to the bone. Angst storms suck.
When I woke up, I dredged myself out of bed and did my mom duties and got the kiddo off to school. Then I took myself and that lovely critic voice along with the load of mucky angst and went off for a walk in the local bay lands. On the drive there, I started unraveling the threads of the angst. This is what my work IS; to walk the patterns recognizing, unraveling, and re-weaving.
It all begins with the critic telling me all the places I am going wrong with my life, the choices leading to spending too much money, the paintings that don’t sell, the time spent on writing articles like this. The critic makes it sound like my choices and what I have built up in my life are all bullshit. That I’ve built a facade of fantasy and it’s time to give up on this and get a real job. About now I feel pretty damn worthless and the angst is much more than ankle deep.
I pull the threads apart as I drive by asking myself these questions. You may want to ask yourself too-
Am I happy right here, right now living and working as an artist?
Do I want to return to a high paying, high stress, no time for creativity job?
Whose life have I impacted positively today?
If I could choose to do anything I want, what would I do?
And so on. Add your own to the list.
Contrary to popular opinion, the bullshit is NOT about me building a fantasy wall around me because I made a life choice to live my life the way I do. It’s about the messages our culture dumps on me for choosing to live my life the way I do.
The messages telling me it is wrong to choose to paint love, create healing and write connection.
The messages saying making money, winning the game, and being famous are the only important things to live for.
And that, my friends, is bullshit.
So many of us get lost here in the darkness of angst, butting our heads up against the cultural facade trying to hem us in on all sides. What the hell do we do?
And, if you think this is simple to do in the face of angst, think again. It is the hardest thing you will ever do. Make no mistake. To continue to walk forward while life dumps rivers of angst on your head is not pleasurable – it is damn necessary.
It is how we change the culture around us. By making choices no one else is making. By not stopping what we are doing. By plowing our way through the bullshit with no looking back.
Today, make one choice that changes your life even if its a very tiny one.
One choice all your own connecting you to a thread of joy. Then sit back and see what happens. It might not be pretty – it might however be awesomely, gloriously freeing.
creatively yours,
Annette
Annette Wagner is a visionary artist and spirit guide who walks the patterns of connection with you to bring you into a closer connection to source. Her work is devoted to sharing the tools of Pattern Walking, Visioning, and Intentional Creativity to help you live the life your spirit is calling you to live!
Her paintings are portals into visionary realms asking the viewer to shift the way they connect to this world. She paints in the Contemporary Symbolism style and works extensively with symbol and color.
Annette is a certified instructor of the Color of Woman Method developed by Shiloh Sophia McCloud. She has a Masters degree in Women’s Spirituality with a certificate in Creative Expression from Sofia University. Her background includes over 25 years of hi-tech experience including 21 patents.
She invites you to visit her at: www.annettewagnerart.com
